Recent Opinions

The world is full of unsolved problems. It is also full of problems for which solutions already exist, if we only leverage them. When we slow down for a minute, consider the available options, and more carefully assess the consequences of various modes of action, we have a better chance of directing our efforts where they ought to go–for the good of ourselves and the issues we face.

Matthew Cohen ’18 and Johnathan Bowes ’15 debate whether Puerto Rico should become the 51st state in the United States. Cohen urges us to question the previous votes in Puerto Rico as well as its tremendous debt while Bowes argues the US should respect the will of Puerto Ricans in whatever they choose.

New online ‘compass’ a hit with freshmen

Cardinal Compass, a new online tool for freshmen released by the office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE), reached 17,000 page views since its launch on Aug. 1 despite some freshmen arguing that the site’s offerings are too broad.

“With the recent changes in undergraduate education, the Class of 2016 will have fewer required courses than previous years and more room to explore,” Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Harry Elam wrote in an email to The Daily.

“Cardinal Compass is designed to help freshmen navigate the many first-year courses available to them and delve into the connections and interests that they develop here at Stanford,” he added.

The online tool breaks down many of the freshman-oriented classes at Stanford, detailing in particular the new Thinking Matters courses.

It also organizes the many Thinking Matters, Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) and Introductory Seminars into different tags, allowing freshmen to filter and search through catalogues based on their interests.

These tags are referred to as a “subject,” which corresponds to themes such as art, environment, and medicine, and “approaches,” which categorizes courses according to the critical activities and skills exercised in the classes, such as collaborative, experimental and sociological skills.

Based on the number of current page views on the tool, Tegan Bradford, director of communications and strategic initiatives for VPUE, said that Cardinal Compass is effectively serving the freshman class.

“With the Cardinal Compass audience being Stanford freshmen, a group of 1768 this year, we take that as a good sign that students are exploring multiple pages across the tool and see the Cardinal Compass as a resource they can come back to,” Bradford said.

Annie Phan ’16 does not use the website because she says the overwhelming flow of information does not allow her to focus on specific questions.

“I prefer working on a person-to-person level especially when it comes to something as important as our future,” Phan said. “There are so many nuts and bolts to it that you can’t put it all on a website.”

Erica McDowell ’16 sympathizes with Phan. She believes the site is lacking at providing details for someone who already has a plan set out.

“Because I already have an idea of where I’m heading in engineering I didn’t find that I got a lot of new information out of it,” McDowell said. “It seemed more useful for someone who had no clue what they were going to do next.”

She did add that it was helpful to see numerous academic opportunities on campus in case her academic plan changed along the way.

Kirsti Copeland, director of residentially-based advising, said that while the site is intended as a resource, it is not intended to take students away from other resources on campus.

“We do not intend for freshmen to use this electronic tool as a substitute for seeking advice from their pre-major advisor, academic director or academic advisor for student-athletes, but rather as a starting point for a more informed conversation,” Copeland said.

Haley Kong ’15 said that it introduces students to a variety of courses in a relatively efficient way.

“They can search for a subject but then they can learn about the other classes that would otherwise be outranked in the bulletin. I think it’s really hard to find those specialized seminars,” Kong said. “I kind of wish I had something like that.”

According to Bradford, new student tools like Cardinal Compass may be on the way to address more needs.

“As we hear from students about what they find most useful about the Cardinal Compass and what features they would like to see us add, we hope to build an even more robust tool in future years,” Bradford said.

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals [...]

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals workshop. This 2-session program will provide you with knowledge of the rich history and stress reduction and resilience-building benefits of the contemplative practice of labyrinth walking. Each session will begin in the classroom followed by a practicum of walking the Windhover labyrinth. Class will be held rain or shine. Please dress accordingly. Please note: registration required for this free class.

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COMFORT WOMEN WANTED brings to light the memory of 200,000 young women, referred to as “comfort women,” who were systematically exploited as sex slaves in Asia during World War II, and increases awareness of sexual violence against women during wartime. It is based on interviews with Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Filipino, and Dutch “comfort women” survivors and a former Japanese soldier from WWII conducted by the filmmaker, Chang-Jin Lee, a Korean-born visual artist from New York City.

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: [...]

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: a national non-profit working to end hunger among all faiths and backgrounds. We work with a variety of groups around campus, including social action groups, interfaith groups, and Greek life. Everyone is welcome to come join us in making challah.

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter's lectures will be by Professor Sean [...]

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter’s lectures will be by Professor Sean Hartnoll.

Black holes have the remarkable property of irreversibility: if you fall into a black hole you can’t get out (classically). This immediately suggested a connection with the other famous irreversibility in physics: the law of increase of entropy. Since the 70s, this connection between black holes and thermodynamic systems has been fleshed out in increasing detail and has lead to surprising conclusions. I will give an introduction to a recent body of work showing how black holes can in fact be used to shed light on exotic materials of interest in condensed matter physics, including the still-not-understood high temperature superconductors.

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in [...]

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in the history of modern theatre; she was not only the originator of the leading female roles in Chekhov’s four major plays, but also became the de facto chief representative of the Moscow Art Theater when they toured the United States. THE LADY ONSTAGE takes us into the psyche of an actress at the moment when theater changed forever, giving us an inside perspective on the radical choices artists make in the name of Art and Love.

March’s Rough Reading presents an intimate reading of Erin Bregman’s new play in early draft form, offering audiences a rare opportunity to engage directly with the artistic process of bringing a play to life. Produced by Playwrights Foundation in partnership with the National Center for New Plays at Stanford.